UK leads ‘right to be forgotten’ requests

Google has revealed that 10 per cent of all ‘right to be forgotten’ requests have come from UK residents.

With European laws recently been introduced, allowing the public to request search results to outdated and irrelevant personal content be removed from the leading search engine, Google has shown just how popular the option has become.

According to Google, it has removed 498,737 links from search results following the introduction of the ‘right to be forgotten’ laws.

This figure includes 63,616 links resulting from the 18,304 requests made by those in the UK.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Facebook was the site most targeted by these removed links. Some 3,353 links to the social media site have been removed from Google’s search results in the EU. Second was YouTube with 2,392 deleted links.

Despite so many links being removed, right to be forgotten requests do not guarantee action. Google has removed just 35 per cent of unwanted links, refusing many requests.

The search giant has highlighted a number of cases of refused requests, including those of a clergyman investigated for sexual abuse and a doctor reported for a botched procedure.

“Three pages that contained personal information about the doctor but did not mention the procedure have been removed from search results for his name,” a Google spokesperson stated. They added: “The rest of the links to reports on the incident remain in search results.”